If anyone on this message board purports to be a Baha'i, and yet continually posts statements that are blatantly contrary to the Baha'i Writings, I suggest you eject him from the Baha'i library forum. Maybe give a few warnings—but this is a dangerous tactic that has been implemented before, specifically, publicly proclaiming to be a Baha'i and doing things that bring disgrace to the good name of the Faith.

In fact, a zero tolerance policy doesn't sound bad either. That, or subversive statements could be deleted and the perpetrator could be e-mailed or P.M.ed a warning. After that, I.P. > Ban!

Because, for example, if someone in your community tells everyone that God doesn't exist, and he openly smokes hashish and is promiscuous, he'd have his administrative rights taken away A.S.A.P. (if people complained). Also if he said things that go against the Baha'i teachings, like for example "the Bab was a false prophet," etc., he'd probably even after a certain point get the designation of "Covenant Breaker." So why be lenient here, especially given the Baha'i moderators? Baha'i moderators, I believe, with a conscience, cannot let such things take place under their wing.

Moderators on this site can't ban anyone for some reason. all we can do is delete their posts and give them a stern warning. Jonah said that he'd change this at some point.

I do think that we should take into account people who have honestly been mistaken upon what the writings say. we don't want to ban people making an honest mistake.

I also think that trying to convice people people that racism is Baha'i doctrine should be banned as well.

Justice and equity are twin Guardians that watch over men. From them are revealed such blessed and perspicuous words as are the cause of the well-being of the world and the protection of the nations.
~ Bahá'u'lláh

I was specifically talking about when someone calls himself a Baha'i and stains the good name of the Faith by posting radical things that go against the teachings, especially when he was been told/shown proof that the Baha'i Faith teaches otherwise. He does this knowing what the Baha'i teachings say; we should know when someone is feigning ignorance versus when someone is truly ignorant. It is very convenient to do something bad and justify it by supposed ignorance or a willingness to learn. The expression "I wasn't born yesterday" comes to the mind of the reader.

If anyone on this message board purports to be a Baha'i, and yet continually posts statements that are blatantly contrary to the Baha'i Writings...

I don't think "continually" need even enter into it -- if anyone claims to be a Baha'i and "blatantly" contradicts the Baha'i teachings, I would have the obligation to delete it. That's because the combination of the two (claiming Baha'i status while disputing its teachings) would come close to the line of formally proscribed speech, i.e. covenant-breaking. Questioning the teachings, of course, is encouraged. Blatantly contrary, though...

Would you mind listing the URLs of the posts that you feel qualify? Here's how to provide the exact URL pointing to the individual post: place your cursor over the word "Quote" at the top right of any post. Copy the link. It'll look like this, where "p=5526" is the post number: http://bahai-library.com/forum2/posting ... ote&p=5526 . That way I can know exactly where to look for possibly prohibited discussion.

Moderators on this site can't ban anyone for some reason. all we can do is delete their posts

First, let me thank Zazaban for his help of late in keeping ads for Viagra and gambling off the forum. Zazaban has kindly agreed to assist us by deleting spam. His help at the moment is specifically that, deleting spam; he is not a site administrator.

Second, I guess I should offer a word of explanation about Zazaban's point. This forum runs on phpBB2, which in its current release does not allow me to configure how much access the moderators have. As moderator, Zazaban is able to delete posts (i.e. our mountain of spam), but does not have access to the other admin functions such as banning certain IPs, banning certain users, or editing personal user data. However, later this year phpBB3 should be out, and it will have more control over configuring access permissions, at which time I'll happily give Zazaban access to ban certain spammers or spammer IPs.

For the record, though, I've only banned a couple IPs, ever. That's because most spammers only post once from each IP and from each user, and actually go to the trouble of setting up a new user account, and confirming it by email, for each spam they post. I understand that much of this activity is conducted, not by spam-bots, but by large teams of low-paid workers in Eastern Europe and Asia. The only way for me to add more security here is by personally approving each and every new user account -- and that's not feasible, especially since I'd have no way of knowing which ones were spammers.

Yes, there are hundreds if not thousands of mods available for phpBB. I don't like to mess with them unless I have to, because not infrequently they cause their own problems -- especially with CMSs I've hacked up a bit, like this one.

For example I added a mod a few months ago to quarantine any post containing more than 2 links, and the unexpected result was that it disabled HTML rendering for non-registered users (no, doesn't make sense to me either), and that even after I re-uploaded the older unchanged files the problem remains.

Thanks, just did -- I actually hadn't seen it earlier, only because I've got a temporary email problem on the server. I'll respond here publicly.

The individual's posts you pointed to -- which as you note were deleted anyway -- were not, I don't believe, by a Baha'i. I missed the place where he claimed to be. If he did claim to be a Baha'i, then yes, we would be obligated to delete anything "blatantly contradictory" to the Baha'i teachings. But I think he repeatedly referred to himself as an outsider.

Having said that, we must have felt the content to be too inflammatory anyway, because I guess we deleted the post back then.

Thanks for your watchful eye, and please don't hesitate to write about this issue again, publicly or pm-ed.